Kilgour Prize 2016 | Peter Gardiner
Newcastle's own Peter Gardiner is the recipient of the 2016 Kilgour Prize, Newcastle Art Gallery’s prestigious annual award for figurative and portrait painting.
Gardiner received the 2016 prize for his painting Origin – Landscape 2016. He lives and practices as an artist in Newcastle’s Tighes Hill area
Discussing the inspiration behind his work, Gardiner stated, “Like a lot of my paintings, this one grew organically from an idea I had about a figure in the Australian bush, which I see as a fairly dark and hostile environment, and how it contrasts with the innocence and openness of the figure.”
Gardiner’s work has been highly recognised in Australia. He received the Caleen Art Prize in 2011, the Muswellbrook Art Prize in 2009 and the Maitland Art Prize in 2003, and he has been a finalist in previous years for the Kilgour Prize, the Wynne Prize, the Dobell Prize and the Mosman Prize. However this latest honour is a significant moment in his career, “This is such a special prize for me because Newcastle Art Gallery was one of the first public institutions that collected my work and showed an interest in me. The Kilgour Prize is only going to get better and better over the years and it’s great to be a part of the Gallery’s history.”
This year the judges chose 35 finalists from an entry pool of 200 works of art, and then the final winner from the 35 shortlisted works.
It is a painting as much about light as it is about certain kinds of terrain, and the metaphorical landscape,” says Newcastle Art Gallery Director Lauretta Morton “In it the artist puts a very sophisticated technical handling to the service of a painterly result which is unsettling and unexpected.”
Morton judged alongside Art Gallery of NSW curatorial consultant Deborah Edwards and University of NSW drawing lecturer Peter Sharp.
Congratulations to Gardiner and the 35 finalists, the exhibition is open to the public with a range of programs to get involved in.
EXHIBITION
Kilgour Prize 2016
27 August – 13 November
Newcastle Art Gallery
Image: Peter Gardiner beside his painting Origin / Landscape, 2016, oil on marine ply.
Courtesy the artist, Newcastle Art Gallery and Olsen Irwin Gallery, Sydney.
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